


Thoughts of Drifting Mind

by FBIEpidemic



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:38:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FBIEpidemic/pseuds/FBIEpidemic





	Thoughts of Drifting Mind

Watching the drool dribble out of the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, Joan know that she could never think of any other place as home. Not the house she was raised in, not the apartment she owned. No, the brownstone is home.

On days like this, Sherlock fills her head with the idea of moving the country. He’ll fill an acre with bees, he’ll do experiments in the yard instead of the kitchen. He’d let her sleep in till noon and he’d bring her breakfast in bed. He’d even build her a nice little table for outdoor picnics.

They both know it’s just an idea that they’ll act on.

Yet, in the winter when his back aches from the cold, she tells him she wants to move to California. There it’s never bone aching cold and she won’t have to wear her winter to coat to bed to stay warm. He always tells her that by the time they make it to California global warming will have made the land useless.

When she tells him she’ll just leave without him then, he insists that they’ll have to remain together. That neither can function as members of society in an appropriate fashion. She corrects him (i)“No, you can’t. I’ve always been fine.”(/i). And he always points out that she’s too fond of him to leave him high and dry in New York all by himself.

But it’s five minutes to three in the morning and she’s watching Sherlock’s chest rise and fall as he slips farther into sleep. 

It’s been years. None of his body is new to her, she’s seen it all. Their partnership is odd, one that leaves most people to think that they’re doing it when they don’t. Yet, here he lies tangled in her sheets, drooling on her pillow. Drooling, like he swears he doesn’t do. 

‘Over the years, they have progressed from hard nights slept on the living room floor to long nights passed out on either of their beds. They can’t do floor nights anymore. Sherlock is older, his back locks up when he lays or seats on the floor for too long. The damage to his heart by both years of stress, drugs, and bullets makes it dangerous to lay stiff and sore on the floor. Joan’s hips hurt, her knees pop, and she’d sooner let Sherlock drink an entire pot coffee by himself than sleep on the floor.

That’s why she’s looking at Sherlock’s chest and wondering how mad he’d be if she laid on him. She knows, from too many nights, that Sherlock’s body temperature naturally runs higher than most peoples and it makes him a fantastic heater in the winter. And it is cold in her room.

“Waaatson,” he lets out a whiny breathe when her cold toes knock against thigh as she moves around on the bed. She’s just moving his work off of the bed so that he doesn’t knock it down in his restless sleep. 

Which he really is. She’s never slept in the same bed as him and kicked in one of his frantic, manic dreams that he lies about having later. She’s not sure if they’re all nightmares but she does know that if she leans over and puts a hand on his cheek that his mumbling settles back down.

Pulling the covers out from under his body, which requires pressing her cold hands on the right parts of his bare body. She’s got enough practice to know that one good hand to the ribs will have him squirming like a child.

To her surprise, when she lays down and pulls the comforter over his shoulders he rolls closer to her and mumbles his thanks. Which is really this poorly strung together set of words that sound enough like a thank you that she convinces herself that it’s what he said.

“Watson, silence.”

She rolls her eyes,” I haven’t said anything, Sherlock.”

With age, Sherlock’s hair grew thinner and whiter. His once only stubbly face is now covered in a kinda managed shaggy beard of sorts. It’s scruff that isn’t long but is more than scruff. It shows his age but he always forgets to shave it off. 

Her own hair has many streaks of grey. She keeps it the same ponytail that she always has. 

“Thinking too loud.” He turns over in the bed, his face almost buried in the pillow. 

She pokes his side,” turn back over, if you stop breathing in the middle of the night I won’t be able to tell.”

He groans, propping himself up on his arm and takes her hand and puts it on the small of his back before falling back on to the bed with enough force to jar her side. “I have bountiful reasons as to why it is that I won’t stop breathing tonight but I require at least an hours sleep before I can list them accordingly.”

Her fingers are almost touching his boxers. 

That’s the kind of relationship they have. He sleeps in her bed with nothing but his boxer. It’s not practical but he doesn’t like wearing a shirt and that’s because he sleeps so stretched out that his shirt rides up and gets in the way. The pants are just because he’s grown lazy with age. 

She can’t say much. She lays beside him in nothing but panties and an overly large shirt...which might actually be his. 

And she wonders why people think they’re a couple.

“Goodnight, Sherlock.” She settles down beside him, her fingers gently rubbing his back. He’s already asleep, he can feel it in the way he’s breathing and she can hear the sound of his soft snoring. 

She loves him. He is every bit her home as the brownstone is and the best part is that she knows he feels the same way.

She tries to sleep but she’s distracted by the rise and the fall of his chest. Her brain can not rest yet.

She moves her hand farther up his back until she finds the section of raised skin on his back. She can feel the two holes from where two different bullets ripped through him. 

She blames the lowest on herself. The bullet was meant for her. The gun was pointed at her, the name shouted was hers but the location of the bullet ended up being in Sherlock’s side. In the last moment, Sherlock had leaped in front of her.

She felt his body begin to cool in his fingers as his body gave up. She held him tight in her arms and a part of her knew to prepare for the worst. Yet, she begged him to stay, even when his eyes slid shut and his body was limp in her arms.

When he woke up in the hospital, they told her that they would need to teach him to walk again. He was walking again in two months.

That bullet is another reason that Sherlock can’t sleep on the hard floor, his back has never been the same.

The second was no bullet at all but a tube that was inserted after a death. Her own. 

The day that Joan Watson died Sherlock Holmes nearly joined her and because of that, Joan can never forgive herself. 

He hadn’t been eating all that week. She was missing and he was hunting. When her body came up, when he was told that her body came up, he ended up in the same hospital as her. They found him on her bed, seizing as his body proclaimed just how angry that it was.

It took her six days to see him awake and three more days to finally gain his trust back. 

“Watson,” his voice cuts through her thoughts and she releases that he was circling her finger around the old scars. “Lay still.”

“Just sush, most people- never mind.” She shakes her head and settles back down on his bed,” just never mind. Goodnight.”

With his face buried in the pillow,” mhmmm.”


End file.
